Sunday, April 17, 2011

Police have expanded their search areas for victims of a suspected serial killer to multiple locations on Long Island.

Members of an Internet sex forum hatched a "revenge" plot against a Long Island hooker who was later murdered and dumped in a serial killer's burial ground, the Daily News has learned.

Talk on longislanderotic.com shows members were outraged when one of their cronies claimed he had paid Amber Lynn Costello $200 for sex, only to be robbed by men who barged into her West Babylon home.

"Tell her we are all coming over there with baseball bats," threatened one member, a self-declared ex-con known as "Morrie."

That ominous threat, and more to follow, has opened a window on what probers say is a virtually unregulated sex network of johns, hookers and escort services.

Amber Lynn Costello in a photo taken in 2008.

Costello's home at 1115 America Ave. in West Babylon, N.Y.

"The Internet has really become a highway for criminality," said Eugene O'Donnell, a professor of law and police studies at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. "In terms of prostitution, it's moved a pretty public enterprise into the shadows more than ever, and made it more difficult for law enforcement to get a handle on it."

Investigators would not say if any of the online johns are suspects in the probe of a possible serial killer who dumped as many as 10 bodies along Gilgo Beach and Jones Beach. Still, law enforcement sources say the chilling online thread is the type of internet-based sex crime that attracted the FBI to the case.

The four victims found in December - Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Melissa Barthelemy and Megan Waterman, in addition to Costello - were craigslist hookers. All had been strangled and stuffed in burlap sacks. The bodies of a woman, a man, a child and an adult whose gender hasn't been determined were found between March 29 and April 4. Two sets of unidentified remains were found on Monday.

Shannan Gilbert, 24, a New Jersey hooker who vanished on the beach in May, is still missing.

A message board member known as "Humiliatrix69" first raged on July 11, 2010, about getting "suckered" by Costello and company hours earlier.

Shortly after, a pal called "italyrider" asked for her address: "No one from this board needs to be involved. I have friends who can take care of this s---."

Humiliatrix69 posted Costello's address, a description of her home, and her phone number. Three days days later, Morrie chimed in: "A friend of ours told me today that 'You won't hear from those 2 girls anymore!'"

Costello, a twice-divorced drug addict, disappeared on Sept. 2, 2010. That was eight weeks after Humiliatrix69 aired his anger on the message board — and posted raunchy pictures of her from her sex ad on newyorkbackpage.com.